Insect and acarid pests destroy growing and harvested crops. In the United States, agronomic crops must compete with thousands of those pests. In particular, tobacco budworms and southern armyworms are especially devastating to crops.
Tobacco budworms cause tremendous economic losses in agronomic crops. In particular, budworms devastate cotton crops by feeding on green bolls. Control of budworms is complicated by their resistance to many common insecticides, including organophosphates, carbamates and pyrethroids.
In spite of the commercial insecticides and acaricides available today, damage to crops, both growing and harvested, caused by insect and acarid pests still occurs. Accordingly, there is ongoing research to create new and more effective insecticidal and acaricidal agents.
Certain fluoroolefin compounds are known to possess insecticidal and acaricidal activity (see, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,248,834; GB 2,283,803-A and WO 94/06741). The fluoroolefin compounds disclosed in GB 2,288,803-A and WO 94/06741 are outside the scope of the present invention. U.S. Pat. No. 5,248,834 generically discloses certain 1-aryl-1-(3-aryl-1-fluoroprop-1-enyl)cyclopropane compounds. However, that patent does not provide a method to prepare those compounds. In fact, U.S. Pat. No. 5,248,834 does not provide a method to prepare any fluoroolefin compounds.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide compounds which are highly effective for the control of insect and acarid pests.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a method for the control of insect and acarid pests.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a method for the protection of growing and harvested crops from damage caused by insect and acarid attack and infestation.
These and other objects of the present invention will become more apparent from the detailed description thereof set forth below.